Finally, ASUU Calls Off Strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on Tuesday afternoon called its over five months old nationwide strike action.

The decision to call off the strike was announced by the national president of ASUU, Nasir Isa Fagge, after a meeting of the National Executive Council, NEC, of the union at the Federal University of Technology, FUT, Minna.

Fagge directed lecturers to return to classrooms and commence lectures in all public universities immediately.

“NEC resolved to suspend the strike embarked upon on the 1st July 2013, with effect from Tuesday December 17th, 2013 and directs its branches to resume work forthwith,” he said.

The ASUU president said that the decision to end the strike action was taken after consultations with the national secretariat and state chapters of the union which all accepted the agreement signed between the union and the federal government on the 11th December, 2013 with the NLC president, Abdulwahed Umar, acting as witness.

The ASUU boss assured that lecturers would try to put in an extra effort to mitigate some of the effects of the strike action and cover lost ground, even as he thanked parents and other Nigerians for understanding the union’s position and supporting it.

“We have undertaken to go back to the classroom, laboratories etc, to do our best for our students, their parents and our country. We are going back to rekindle the motivation and aspiration in our members to strive to encourage our students to excel, all in its expectation that government will sincerely honour its own part of the bargain,” he stated.

Fagge said that ASUU would facilitate the inauguration of the implementation and monitoring committee on the report of the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities and ensure compliance of relevant stakeholders.

He also expressed the hope that the federal government would deal promptly with areas of the agreement between the parties that require policy or legislative action in order to address some of the challenges facing public universities.